


The Women

by theladyscribe



Series: Hockey WIP Amnesty [10]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Infidelity, Pittsburgh Penguins, Sidney Crosby Is Not a Good Person in This, Sidney Crosby: Pick-Up Artist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:14:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/pseuds/theladyscribe
Summary: "I'm Sidney," he says. "Can I buy you a drink?"He's learned that straightforward and to the point works better than dancing around things too much. Women like guys who are friendly, a little bold but polite.
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Various Women
Series: Hockey WIP Amnesty [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/814878
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	The Women

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been living rent-free in my brain for the past two and a half years, and I think I'm finally ready to let it go. Title is shamelessly stolen from the 1939 movie of the same name.

**Pittsburgh**

She's married. Sidney can tell by the way she thumbs at her bare finger, rubbing at a ring that isn't there even as she flits her eyes from his throat to his lips and back to his eyes. He doesn't have the over-confident charm that Geno or Talbo have, but he gives her the crooked smile that always seems to make people swoon.

"I'm Sidney," he says. "Can I buy you a drink?"

He's learned that straightforward and to the point works better than dancing around things too much. Women like guys who are friendly, a little bold but polite. Canadian, or at least the stereotype of Canadian. A gent in the streets but a freak in the sheets, as Talbo once put it.

It works. She agrees to a drink and lets him linger. They chat for a while, about the weather (a little cool for the time of year, but nothing to complain about) and what she does (executive assistant for the corporate side at a hospital) and why she's in Pittsburgh (a conference for work).

Sidney leans a little closer when someone behind him wants to flag down the bartender; when they have their drink, he drifts back but not as far away as he was. After they each have a second drink, she stops fiddling with her hands and starts bumping her foot against his. It's subtle, a question more than an answer. Sidney shifts his weight so his knee knocks into hers. She doesn't flinch away, her knee pressing more firmly against his.

Three drinks in, she's relaxed, talking animatedly about upcoming changes in health insurance and how they'll affect her hospital system. Sidney tries to stay engaged, but he's distracted by the hint of lace he can see where her top buttons have come undone. He wants to put his mouth there. He hopes she'll let him.

Sidney jumps a little when her hand lands on his arm.

"Sorry," he says, and she laughs.

"I'm the one who should be sorry. I'm probably boring you to tears."

Sidney shakes his head. "You could never."

Her laugh is a little more incredulous this time. "My hu— my _ex_ would tell you otherwise."

"You wanna get out of here?" he asks, already reaching for his wallet.

"My hotel is across the bridge."

Sidney smiles that crooked grin again. "I'll get us a car."

They enter the hotel through a side door at Sidney's request — the last thing he wants is a gossipy hotel concierge getting the word out that he was spotted coming in with an older woman. She stands apart from him in the elevator, but he can see her watching him in the mirrored doors. When she catches him looking back, she ducks her head.

Her room looks just like all the other hotel rooms Sidney has been in: double beds with dull comforters, pressboard furniture with cherry veneers, a cheaply-made TV. There's a pajama set laid across the back of the armchair — pink with purple polka dots — and she hurries to shove it into her open suitcase.

"Sorry," she says. "I wasn't intending… I didn't expect company tonight."

She's blushing, the flush bright against her white dress shirt, and Sidney really wants to touch her now. "I don't mind," he assures her, stepping closer.

He comes to stand right in front of her, just this side of too close. She takes a deep breath, her chest rising and falling, before she looks up at him. She's biting her lip, maybe still just a little reluctant, so Sidney waits her out.

"I can go," he says softly, one hand coming up to stroke her arm. "But I really don't want to."

She releases her lip from between her teeth and says in a rush, "I don't want you to either."

Sidney smiles and skims his hand up to her shoulder. He leans into her, lips almost brushing, and says, "Okay."

He slips his other arm around her waist and kisses her, tugging her close. Her hands come to his shoulders, grasping at his lapels.

As they kiss, Sidney moves his hand again, this time to her breast, squeezing gently before tucking his thumb under her shirt to feel the lace of her bra. She presses into the touch, and he slips his thumb downward until it catches on a button.

"I wanted to do this since the moment I saw you," Sidney tells her before putting his mouth on her breast over the lace, scraping his tongue against it. She squirms beneath him, gasping when he finds her nipple and bites gently.

***

**Las Vegas**

His wife doesn't like him either, Sidney guesses. He talks to her for all of five minutes before she says, "You don't have to be subtle with me. The answer is yes."

They have a quickie in the bathroom after her husband wins the Jack Adams but before the presentation of the nominees for the Hart.

***

**New York**

"Why did you settle for him, if you never loved him?"

It's something Sidney always wonders with the women he meets. So many of them are in unhappy marriages, though they work hard to keep the façade in place. Everyone knows that most guys step out on their wives or steady girlfriends at least once or twice, but they all pretend that it would never happen to them. Sidney knows better — he's seen firsthand the guys propped up by their teams as real family men who have a different girl in every NHL town.

She smiles sharply and takes a drag of her cigarette. She has that look in her eyes that makes Sidney feel like a shy eighteen-year-old at the draft all over again. It's pity, maybe, or disdain.

Her gaze flicks around the opulent hotel room, lighting on the lush velvet of the curtains, the gilt furniture, the stacks of silver dinnerware from the meal they shared. When she turns back to him, there's a smirk at the edge of her mouth.

"Sweetheart, sometimes settling gets you exactly what you want."

***

**Vail**

She comes with her boyfriend that first summer Sidney trains in Vail with Andy and his crew. She's outside his usual type: taller than he is, leggy, with bronze skin that only gets moreso in the thin mountain air.

Sidney is taken with her from the moment they first meet.

It takes her longer than most to come around, but Sidney works his charm until she's laughing at him from under her boyfriend's arm at the group dinner at the end of the week.

It still takes two years of two weeks in Vail and the occasional group dinner when their teams cross paths before Sidney knows he can kiss her without being punched in the mouth for it.

He always has enjoyed a challenge.

*

It really starts that third summer. Sidney arrives in Vail early, and so does she. Sidney runs into her when he gets to the resort. He's checking in and she's on her way to the pool, clad in a bikini and clutching a romance novel in one hand.

It's a coincidence, but a happy one.

Sidney asks if she'd like to have dinner with him that evening, since the rest of the usual suspects have not yet arrived. She smiles and says, "There's a new brewery downtown. You're allowed burgers and beer before camp starts, right?"

Sidney smiles back. "I think I can make an exception this once."

"Good. Meet you in the lobby at seven?"

"It's a date."

*

"He asked me to marry him, you know."

"Oh?" says Sidney, surprised. He thought they were on the rocks, the last time it came up.

She shifts, sitting up more fully, her exposed breasts at Sidney's eye-level. He wants to reach out, to touch her, but the moment feels brittle, like they both might shatter if he does.

"I told him yes," she says. She won't look at him, her gaze fixed on the wall opposite. Sidney stares at her jaw, watches the way her throat moves as she swallows. "I do love him."

"Of course."

"We can't do this again," she says.

"Of course," Sidney says again. She wouldn't be the first to end things, and she won't be the last.

He doesn't expect the hand that brushes his face, her fingers gentle as she traces his jaw. "We still have tonight," she tells him.

Her thumb presses against his lips. Sidney opens his mouth and lets it in.

*

Sidney wears his blue suit to their wedding and tries — and fails — to think about anything besides the way she looked underneath him, the sounds she made when he thrust two fingers inside her, how she could turn him inside out without even trying. He briefly considers standing up when the priest calls for objections to their union, but he holds his tongue and grips the pew bench until his knuckles are white. They were never serious, Sidney reminds himself. They were never meant to be serious. And even if they had been, well, it's moot now.

Their vows are sweet and funny, sincere. He flubs the line about in sickness and in health; she doesn't even flinch when she proclaims her everlasting fidelity.

Sidney breathes slowly through all of it, in through his nose and out through his mouth, counting out each inhale and exhale. The woman beside him gives him a sidelong glance, 

When Sidney goes through the receiving line, she smiles warmly and greets him. "We weren't sure you'd make it."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he says, a pit in his stomach.

***

**Houston**

Sidney makes the connection in Prague, during Worlds, but he doesn't have an opportunity to consummate it until the All-Star Game Weekend.

She texts him: _I'm going to be in Austin for work._

He texts back: _I'll see you there._

***


End file.
